Monday, October 28, 2013

Game 4 of the World Series drew an average of 15.4 million viewers, while the Sunday Night Football game on NBC drew an average of 14.9 million. The NFL still lead in the key 18-49 year old demographic, with a 5.6/13 rating/share to MLB’s 4.4/11. The previous weeks Sunday Night Football game had a 9.5 rating in that demographic. The World Series was up 10% among the demo from last year’s game 4.

These are the preliminary ratings, so the end numbers might shift, but I think based on this it’s pretty likely that game 5 tonight will handily top Monday Night Football’s Seattle/St. Louis match.

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All this stuff is stupid, but that a World Series game got 3% more viewers than a midseason football game involving a 1-win team isn't exactly proof of MLB's dominance.

I'm not even remotely claiming dominance, just providing more evidence that baseball is still pretty solidly popular despite the constant concern trolling about how even the World Series can't hope to match mid-season football.

And while the Vikings are not good this year, the Packers are one of the top 4-5 franchises in popularity.

Sunday Night Football was yet another Vikings crapfest. I live in Minnesota and nearly all the football fans I know were watching the World Series, except for the Packers fans. A lot of them were actually at the game.

I would venture that a lot of Packers fans weren't watching the World Series, unless they were getting their hate-watch for the Cardinals on.

The 4.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic should translate to something like a 9.5 rating overall, which would put the first 4 games at an average around 8.5. That alone would make it the highest rated through 4 games since 2009.

And ratings tend to rise the longer the series continues. My pre-Series estimates had a 6-game Series on FOX with these teams coming in at a 9.8 average rating, and a 7-game Series at 10.8. These are high but achievable.

It would be fun to contrast the minutes of coverage/analysis Game 4 got on SportsCenter and Mike&Mike; as opposed to the coverage/analysis of some silly argument that Dez Bryant got into with Jason Whitten on the sidelines.

It would be fun to contrast the minutes of coverage/analysis Game 4 got on SportsCenter and Mike&Mike; as opposed to the coverage/analysis guests shouting about some silly argument that Dez Bryant got into with Jason Whitten on the sidelines.

I was surprised by how bad the ratings were last year. 3 of the games were close, and the teams involved have pretty large fanbases. It was a sweep, which hurts, but it's not like it was a Padres/Rays world series.

I was surprised by how bad the ratings were last year. 3 of the games were close, and the teams involved have pretty large fanbases. It was a sweep, which hurts, but it's not like it was a Padres/Rays world series.

But those wealthier folks have essentially stopped making consumer decisions. When a 50 year old buys a sports car he goes for the brand he longed for at age 20.

Do advertisers believe this? Anecdotally, it doesn't seem true to me (and, as someone pointed out, couldn't really be all that true, since brands often go out of existence and new ones come into existence).

Because it's not a story-- prime time always beats afternoon ratings, and "60 Minutes" airs in prime time.

Except that we're talking about a prime time game, the one that starts at 8:30pm and is on for the entire prime time period. I don't think it's really a story, but then I think the argument that baseball is doomed to become the NHL as compared to the unbeatable football juggernaut is dumb too. And I think it's pretty clear that baseball took a big bite out of NFL ratings last night, while not having nearly as much effect on The Walking Dead.

Is there a ratings bubble -- or maybe at least, an ad price bubble - for TV advertising generally?

I mean, I watch a LOT of TV... and I actually do not use my Tivo nearly that much (even when I do, I'm too lazy to actually FF commercials anyway)... but I seriously cannot remember the last time I saw an ad for a good or service or even a movie or whatnot where I legitimately thought "I want to purchase/see that".

I still part of that coveted demographic - and I can tell you the last ads that moved me to investigate and/or buy something --

1) Impulse's (Steam-like game service) adserve advertised a really good sprite pack deal for HOI3 -- so I bought them

2) I use Mint.com's online banking and personal finance tracker/app -- and I did use its car insurance suggestions to investigate a cheaper rate when my policy was up for renewal last week

3) I used the newspaper circular to write up my grocery list for yesterday's trip the Jewel

My bet is that all of those things cost mere peanuts (in comparison) to advertise on....

I was surprised by how bad the ratings were last year. 3 of the games were close, and the teams involved have pretty large fanbases. It was a sweep, which hurts, but it's not like it was a Padres/Rays world series.

I was not surprised. I actually thought ratings would be worse in 2012 than they actually were.

You're right that a sweep hurts ratings. But also, the Tigers historically have been a drag on World Series ratings relative to other teams with large fanbases.

FWIW, the only ratings draws my model would expect to have been better than the one we have this year would be, in descending order:

...all because one of the teams involved would have been overcoming a long championship drought.

It might seem odd that Pirates vs. Indians wouldn't have been as big as a bump. Think 2005, which at the time was the worst-rated WS by a healthy margin, despite the fact that it was guaranteed one of the two teams would end a multi-generational drought.

Is there a ratings bubble -- or maybe at least, an ad price bubble - for TV advertising generally?

I've always been of the mind that TV (and newsprint/magazine and probably radio) advertising is way too high given what internet advertising costs. It's just that with internet ads you get discrete information about things like clickthroughs, whereas with the other types of advertising the utility of each ad is murkier. I don't think that internet ads are so much less effective than TV ads on a per customer impression basis as to make the difference in prices reasonable. But I fully admit to not knowing much about the analytics used to justify the prices set, and so my opinion probably doesn't mean much.

eta: The Superbowl had 30 second spots going for 4 million, and an audience of 108.4 million. That's about 3.7 cents per unique impression. Just checking online, 1000 impressions (not unique) for a banner ad costs 24 cents, or .024 cents per impression. That means that a Super Bowl ad needs to be roughly 150 times more effective than the banner ad to be worth the price. There's obviously a lot more to it than that, especially regarding unique impressions and the like and quality of ad, and the exact price of impressions, but that's a pretty big difference.

The 4.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic should translate to something like a 9.5 rating overall, which would put the first 4 games at an average around 8.5. That alone would make it the highest rated through 4 games since 2009.

I mean, I watch a LOT of TV... and I actually do not use my Tivo nearly that much (even when I do, I'm too lazy to actually FF commercials anyway)... but I seriously cannot remember the last time I saw an ad for a good or service or even a movie or whatnot where I legitimately thought "I want to purchase/see that".

That's some serious, professional level laziness there, Zonk. I mean, you push a button on the remote. Which you leave in your chair. It's not like you have to get another beer or go to the john or something.

That's some serious, professional level laziness there, Zonk. I mean, you push a button on the remote. Which you leave in your chair. It's not like you have to get another beer or go to the john or something.

Well, it's annoying because there is no way that I can tell to autostop at the resumption of the show... sooo.... you end up hitting the FF button like 5 times to get max FF... then you miss the cutback to your program.... then you have to backup... it's just a pain.

It annoys me... so I generally just let the commercials play and make a sammich or go to the facilities or get another beer or do the same stuff that one did before Tivo.

But yes - thank you - I do take a great deal of pride in my well-honed laziness. I've devoted - or rather, shirked - thousands of hours or preparation in order to become as lazy as I currently am.

You could hit the fast forward button once and then hit play when the show restarts, missing at most a second of the action. Still faster then sitting through all the commercials. You don't need to get max FF...

You could hit the fast forward button once and then hit play when the show restarts, missing at most a second of the action. Still faster then sitting through all the commercials. You don't need to get max FF...

Yes you do... they make a max FF so you should use it. Trust me, I've done all the math... Tivo/DVR capability for dealing with commercials is vastly overrated.

Oh, but you do. At least, I do. I can't help myself, even though I realize that it's going to take me longer. I'm a slave to speed!

I do too, but I also haven't deemed the occasional need to rewind after FF'ing too far so frustrating as to render the whole process useless. If I did, I think I'd settle for the middle ground, rather than needlessly subjecting myself to endless ads for "Dads" and GEICO.

Oh, but you do. At least, I do. I can't help myself, even though I realize that it's going to take me longer. I'm a slave to speed!

What's more - and here's where more laziness comes into play -- true laziness requires that you not use multiple buttons for your FF/Play.... hence -- my laziness requires me to FF and and restart Play using only a single button. This means that inevitably, I need to cycle through all levels of FF anyway because that's the only way to get it back to normal speed.

For the truly lazy, the Play button should not exist nor should it ever be used...

Do you have a skip forward 30 seconds button? I prefer that to fast-forwarding, because I used to sometimes "miss the cue" and fast-forward well into the program, but by using the skip forward 30 seconds button, I'm never going to go more than 29 seconds into the actual program. I would also argue that it's an even lazier method than fast-forwarding, so it might be the solution you need.

Tivo fastforward is set up so that when you're going at maximum speed and push play, it backs up a little to reach the point at which you thought "Oh! I should push play!" rather than the actual spot where you pushed it. Sometimes you see a bit of the after-commercial content before it jumps back, but it works pretty well.

scott (#30): a couple of dynamics I do know a little about, from people in the business. Magazine ads in particular are very durable. They sit around on waiting-room tables and are seen by people who visit your house when you've got a magazine upside down on the table and what not. That's hard to calculate, but it's definitely less ephemeral than the Male Gamers Only banners that I've been getting on BBTF lately :)

As for the Super Bowl, it's not so much that they're selling a product to the public as that they're jockeying for position within the trade and the larger business world. If some mega corp doesn't buy their usual SB spot, it might reduce their stock price, at least indirectly, through the current mania for brand placement and image. If some corp bursts into the SB arena with a first-time buy, they've come of age, etc.

I hate DVRs even though I have one. I've used it maybe 10 times and each time I've wished I didn't have to use it and in some cases I've even said to hell with it and downloaded the show anyway. Once you start downloading content you discover every other way of watching TV really really sucks in comparison.

As for the Super Bowl, it's not so much that they're selling a product to the public as that they're jockeying for position within the trade and the larger business world.

Clever or notorious Super Bowl ads get replayed free on news shows and featured on the internet. Also, the Super Bowl is one of the few shows where one can expect to reach C-level executives with ads for consulting, accounting and other business services.

eta: The Superbowl had 30 second spots going for 4 million, and an audience of 108.4 million. That's about 3.7 cents per unique impression. Just checking online, 1000 impressions (not unique) for a banner ad costs 24 cents, or .024 cents per impression. That means that a Super Bowl ad needs to be roughly 150 times more effective than the banner ad to be worth the price. There's obviously a lot more to it than that, especially regarding unique impressions and the like and quality of ad, and the exact price of impressions, but that's a pretty big difference.

I assume that the good Super Bowl ads get replayed many times on both TV "best of" shows as well as on Youtube after the fact.

Whereas I had to scroll back to the top of this page to see what ad was up there - I didn't even notice it when I loaded the page.

I hate DVRs even though I have one. I've used it maybe 10 times and each time I've wished I didn't have to use it and in some cases I've even said to hell with it and downloaded the show anyway. Once you start downloading content you discover every other way of watching TV really really sucks in comparison.

I don't even understand this. What's the issue with using the DVR? I mean, OK, downloading means not having to FF through commercials (if that's your thing), but I can't actually picture why a DVR would annoy you more than, say, live TV.

With live TV you have the ability to change the channel and or sit passiely.

This just seems bizarre. If you're watching a recording, aren't you watching what you want to watch? Changing the channel, I would think, only applies when you've just got live TV on and you're not sure what you want to watch.

DVRs have clunky fast forward options

Whereas live TV has none. So just don't use them.

and sluggish transitioning

Not sure what this means.

Commercial breaks suck but trying to fast forward is just as bad as the breaks themselves.

So again, don't FF.

I'm not trying to be snarky; I really want to understand your point of view but I just don't.

Yes, I'm off to the Triumph dealer as soon as I can sell a few of my investments.

This is actually proving the point that you are arguing against. The brand recognition stuck with you. Yes, brands will go, but businesses shouldn't refrain from marketing because they might not be in business in a few decades.

(And yes, I'm a guy in his early 40's who bought a car last year that I pined for as a teenager. The modern version, anyway).

I'm not trying to be snarky; I really want to understand your point of view but I just don't

So what is the point of the DVR then?

Again, my point was that everything that isn't downloaded sucks compared to downloaded content. With downloaded content I can watch it any time I want on virtually any device I want and I've probably got about 100 more display and audio options than I do with just a TV or with a DVR.

I set it to record all the shows I watch. I don't know/care when they're on. When I feel like watching TV, I pull up the list and choose something.

Again, my point was that everything that isn't downloaded sucks compared to downloaded content. With downloaded content I can watch it any time I want on virtually any device I want

Agreed, but this is hardly a pervasive option. If you're talking about legal options, not everything is available, and certainly not all from the same source or in a timely manner. And nearly all of it is streaming, not downloading.

If you're talking about torrenting, that's a different story. Putting aside the legal/ethical debate, you absolutely can encounter space issues, format issues, and the occasional bad encode -- and that's assuming you have no bandwidth cap on your Internet, of course.

and I've probably got about 100 more display and audio options than I do with just a TV or with a DVR.

No idea what you mean here. I can't even imagine where that number comes from.

If you're talking about torrenting, that's a different story. Putting aside the legal/ethical debate, you absolutely can encounter space issues, format issues, and the occasional bad encode -- and that's assuming you have no bandwidth cap on your Internet, of course.

I've never once enountered an issue with the quality of the video nor have I ever encountered a bandwidth issue despite the fact that I download virtually all of my media entertainment and have a 200gig cap. Space has never been an issue and with an HDMI cable formatting isn't an issue either.

No idea what you mean here. I can't even imagine where that number comes from.

DVRs have clunky FF and Rewind options while media players have a ton of different options. You can also play around with all the other options much much easier with a media player than you can for a DVR or a TV.

I've never made the argument that DVR is worse than simply watching regular TV.

Fair enough. I think I took your remark about watching passively or changing the channel and made all sorts of assumptions. My bad.

I can't argue that watching a torrented file is an overall better experience. Media players in general are just more polished than DVRs in any number of ways. (Which is kooky. A decade ago when I was into TiVo hacking, a guy I knew once said, "All DVRs are half-assed; TiVos are just less half-assed than most." It was very true at the time, and a decade later it still seems to be true.)

For me, however, the DVR is good enough: set it to record the vast majority of what we watch, and forget it. It's all there, it's viewable from any TV, and it has a high WAF. I know I could deploy some kind of media player in each room, but this already works well enough.

I'm curious; what do you use for media playback? Media PC? Some kind of Roku-like box? I'm considering options for the bedrooms.

IS FOOTBALL TOO SLOW PACED TO APPEAL TO THE YOUNGER DEMOGRAPHIC??? IS FOOTBALL IN THE DECLINE?

What's really ridiculous is that despite the WS being watched more than the primetime football games (and most likely siphoning a good chunk of their audience) ESPN is still all NFL all the time except for when it's college football. I mean, I get that they have games to promote, but geez.

When I had an older laptop I would use a memory stick but now I use a HDMI cable. I rarely stream but there are a few free applications that will let you stream provided that your TV is new enough to handle it.

Yes you can, because it's an artificial distinction at this point. The number of people still watching television through an antenna is extremely small. If you have the broadcast channels, you almost certainly have ESPN.

I think "slightly different" is underselling it. Those articles that compare them the other way are foolhardy too. The baselines are thoroughly different. It's like comparing batting average and slugging percentage.

The number of people still watching television through an antenna is extremely small. If you have the broadcast channels, you almost certainly have ESPN.

No. Yes.

This is one of those situations where the people who are likely to be posting to an online baseball message board are not likely to be representative of the country at large. There are a surprising (to me) number of broadcast-only households in this country.

Those numbers are very slippery. But you can bet on an 80-20 or 90-10 split (conservative to wacky - it's probably somewhere in the middle). But even if it's only 10% of the population that doesn't have access to cable, that's 33 million people or so! It's extremely difficult to accurately measure the remainder, and I think a very poor job is being done to try.

My hypothesis is that the people without access to cable aren't big television watchers, so they're an even smaller percentage of the viewership of any show. Note that this is practically impossible to prove or disprove, which makes it ideal for my purposes.

(Those purposes are "making arbitrary pronouncements on the Internet")

A lot (no one knows how many) of the "cord-cutters" have the ability to watch Over-The-Air broadcasts. Do they have TVs that are set up this way? No one can tell you.

I've whined about this before on this topic, so please forgive me for doing it again, in case anyone hasn't seen it: with a "spectacle" like the World Series or the Super Bowl, often people go to a friend's house to view it in a group, or at a sports bar or something. There might be thirty or forty adults watching the game. How are they measured?

I was a total "cord cutter" for about 4 to 5 years, in that I didn't have cable or internet. During that time the cable company failed to switch off the cable to our apartment so I still had access to cable TV for about a year. Though the only shows I ever watched during that time was the Daily Show, Colbert Report, and the Cubs in the playoffs so that didn't last long. After that I didn't own a TV and simply downloaded/streamed everything I wanted to watch over my neighbor's internet connection.

This is actually proving the point that you are arguing against. The brand recognition stuck with you. Yes, brands will go, but businesses shouldn't refrain from marketing because they might not be in business in a few decades.

No, I'm arguing against the idea that a 50-year-old is going to buy a car based on a consumer decision he made thirty years earlier. If I'm buying a car right now, I will look at what is available right now. I may be over 49, but I still make consumer decisions based on the here and now, not on what I thought in 1983.

No, I'm arguing against the idea that a 50-year-old is going to buy a car based on a consumer decision he made thirty years earlier. If I'm buying a car right now, I will look at what is available right now. I may be over 49, but I still make consumer decisions based on the here and now, not on what I thought in 1983.

Well then, you're arguing against the marketing approach of numerous companies.

We just went through a whole retro fad with cars in which the big American automakers were selling a ton of 70's era cars with big motors and I don't think it is a coincidence that a bunch of 50+ year olds were buying those cars.

Well then, you're arguing against the marketing approach of numerous companies.

We just went through a whole retro fad with cars in which the big American automakers were selling a ton of 70's era cars with big motors and I don't think it is a coincidence that a bunch of 50+ year olds were buying those cars.

I take great pleasure in arguing against marketing approaches, because I'm of the view that most marketing approaches represent false narratives written by 'experts' who are inventing such things to justify their existence.

Given an appropriate budget, I would wager I can conjure up a market among the 50+ for sporty cars with big motors without any appeal to memories of an unmisspent youth.

50+ year old people with lots of disposable cash and the desire to buy something rather useless but fun like a sports car have existed for decades. In the 80's and 90's these guys would have bought a Porsche, Corvette, or maybe a Viper. In the 00's they got these guys to buy Chargers, Challengers, Mustangs, and Camaroes and now Porsche is making crossovers and I don't even think they make a Viper anymore.

Nostalgia is real and when you combine that with lots of disposable cash you're going to get retro fads.

I take great pleasure in arguing against marketing approaches, because I'm of the view that most marketing approaches represent false narratives written by 'experts' who are inventing such things to justify their existence.

Truer words were never spake. There was a book many years ago outlining how the "demographics" claims made by "experts" (and, amazingly, accepted by the advertisers on TV, who have to pay through the nose) were completely made up out of whole cloth. But, as the book explains, there's a gentleman's agreement between MadMen and TV advertisers not to mention this or our whole economy would go down the drain..

Nostalgia is real and when you combine that with lots of disposable cash you're going to get retro fads.

I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing the assertion that the reason that the desired demographic for television is 18-49 is because people over 49 have 'essentially stopped making consumer decisions', their minds made up by the marketing campaigns of thirty years ago. I think the marketers' know they have a harder job selling to older people, because they are wiser. So, I agree with Royals Retro in [21]. Young people spend stupidly, and therefore are easy marks for mark[g]et[t]ers.

Marketers construct the narrative of 'essentially stopped making consumer decisions' in order to explain away their ineptitude at appealing to older folk.

I watch far, far too much TV - some good, but plenty bad/just for the background noise. The reality, though, is that my life would probably improve substantially if I cut the cord... I'd save more than $100 a month - closer to $130. I'd read more. I'd do a lot more productive things.

But then, I wouldn't get the pleasure of watching a syndicated Bob's Burgers I've seen 5 times before already...